general report II
the new abduction of EUROPe
Pere Portabella
Pere Portabella (Figueres, 1927) kept his political commitment to all the movements concerned against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco from the 1960’s. He was elected Senator in the first democratic election after Franco’s death, and later became member of Catalonia’s Parliament. As a filmmaker, he has kept a relevant activity for more than four decades. As the head of Films 59 he produced some of the most emblematic films of Spanish cinema: Carlos Saura’s Los golfos (The Hooligans, 1959), Marco Ferreri’s El cochecito (The Wheelchair, 1960) as well as Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana (1960). As a film director, he makes his own creations by bringing together the legacy of the avant-garde culture and his search to breach the boundaries of languages. He was the only Spanish artist invited to the Documenta XI of Kassel (2002). In 2008 he is invested Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
“You may have the impression that Portabella is an extreme, disrespectful, destructive filmmaker; a punk filmmaker. And, in a way, he is. Except for one thing: Messiness - something usually associated with punks but which is completely absent in his films. If Portabella is a punk filmmaker, he is the most elegant of them all. He is the one who demonstrates, takes apart and destroys forms, mechanisms and discourses while he frames with the mathematic virtuosity of Antonioni or Resnais, photographs with the violence of Glauber Rocha, edits with the revolutionary intelligence of Eisenstein and moves the camera with the sophisticated arrogance of Fellini. He is the one who can straighten his tie while he breaks cinema and the world into pieces.”
Feature Films
- No compteu amb els dits: 1967, 28 min, 35mm, B/N & color
- Nocturn 29: 1968, 78 min, 35mm, B/N & color
- Vampir-Cuadecuc: 1970, 66 min, 16 mm, B/N
- Umbracle: 1972, 85 min, 16mm, B/N
- El sopar: 1974, 48 min, 16mm, color
- Informe general sobre algunas cuestiones de interés para una proyección pública: 1976, 154 min, 16mm, color
- Pont de Varsovia: 1989, 84 min, 35mm, color
- Die stille vor Bach: 2007, 100 min, 35mm, color
Selected Short Films
- Aidez l’Espagne: 1969, 5 min, 16mm, B/N & color
- Premios Nacionales: 1969, 5 min, 16mm, color
- Miró l’altre: 1969, 15min, 16mm, B/N & color
- Poetes catalans: 1970, 30 min, 16mm, B/N
- Play back: 1970, 8 min, 16mm, B/N
- Miró Tapis: 1973, 24 min, 16 mm, color
- Miró Forja: 1973, 22 min, 16mm, color
- Acció Santos: 1973, 12 min, 16 mm, color
- Art a Catalunya: 1992, 31 min, 35 mm, color
- La tempesta: 2003, 6min, digital, B/N
- Plan Hidrológico Nacional: 2004, 4 min, Digital, color
- No al No: 2006, 12min, 35mm, color
- Mudanza: 2008, 20min, Digital (4k), color